The date draws nearer
to the one I should avoid so
I don’t want to crush my bones.
I have grown 4 inches
in the span of 5 years;
lost 8 teeth.
Those pearls,
falling to the sand
out of my bleeding mouth,
and the jellyfish shocks my foot.
My eyes were fixed on things
I could not keep,
places I could not stay.
Didn’t I know enough?
Didn’t I see enough blood
running down from the windows
of luxurious towers?
Didn’t I see the smoke -
the funnels,
Applying tragedy to beauty.
On the balcony, in my mourning suit,
I cannot view the ocean from here.
So I go,
down the stairs, across the street,
and a radio’s tune, blown by the wind,
reaches me.
I was supposed,
expected to weep.
No other sound could interrupt
the silence and secrecy
between every person in the room
who knew what the other was thinking.
I should have fallen asleep
waiting for the tide.
We gave up on death,
just as we had in life.
I wanted to pull the sun down
by a string,
so I could dream.
Let me go on, do not stir me.
The crash, thunder, light,
All reminders that the earth
was still breathing, alive,
and I do not want to be.
How could I resist such an invitation?
But how dare I after this?
And everything was suddenly changed,
I could feel the loss, in my legs,
in my stomach and veins.
I could see it in the sunset.
How can you leave behind all of this,
and still take so much with you.
We crossed the state line,
back home and the distance
lends a hand to me.
Maybe it was fear, maybe regret,
maybe forgery, maybe innocence.
But I never saw what it was,
why they laughed,
why at the mention of your name,
my stomach clenched.
I never get too close to the fire,
or stayed in the sun for too long.
Many have joined,
many will in peace.
How strange is it,
numbers placed on days,
time placed on light and orbit -
It is too long, too much.
I could find a way, a place,
where all of this makes sense.
I could hide the truth.
I hate the years, the miles,
all dragging me from you,
and the water,
begging to get inside my lungs.
And you show me your face.
But my eyes will always be on the ground and sky,
where I wish I could stay, and wish I could fly.

Straight down to Florida, and the palm trees
look as dead to me as the skin on the palm
of my hand.
In the still of the night,
at a gas station, smoking.
Never did we care about things
going up in flames,
down the drain.
Ask me anything, anything you want
Slapping mosquitoes, yellow sun
taste of lukewarm Coke in the backseat
I asked for a road that ran straight
into the ocean.
We tried to swim all the way
to Mexico.
I wanted to become a million grains of sand.
I hope you find me in your picnic lunch.
I hope you can't wash me off your feet.
But we see the oil on the shore,
we hear the deaths announced on the radio,
dolphin's cry,
garbage around a turtle's neck.
I hope I am one beautiful thing in this world
that they can't destroy.